Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist who was held in solitary confinement for almost three weeks in Iran, has returned home after being freed from prison.
A plane carrying the 29-year-old landed at Rome’s Ciampino airport on Wednesday afternoon, where she was greeted by family members and politicians including the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
Sala’s return has been praised as a political and diplomatic victory for Meloni and her rightwing government. “Thanks to intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels, our compatriot has been released by the Iranian authorities,” a statement from Meloni’s office said.
Sala, a reporter for Il Foglio, was arrested on 19 December on charges of breaching Islamic law three days after she arrived in the country on a journalist visa.
She was welcomed at the airport by Meloni, Antonio Tajani, Italy’s foreign minister and Roberto Gualtieri, the mayor of Rome.
“I am proud of the great teamwork that led to this result,” Tajani told parliament earlier on Wednesday. “From the beginning we have all worked to bring our compatriot home quickly.”
Sala’s plight had become intertwined with that of Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, an Iranian engineer arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a US warrant a few days before Sala was detained.
Najafabadi is accused of supplying drone components to Tehran. Prosecutors in Milan on Tuesday denied a request for house arrest from Najafabadi’s defence lawyers. A hearing is scheduled on 15 January. As of Wednesday, it was unclear how Sala’s release would influence Najafabadi’s case.
Iran denied on Monday that there was a link between Sala’s arrest and that of Najafabadi. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baqaei, said Sala had been arrested for “violating the law of the Islamic republic” during her reporting trip.
The journalist’s release comes a few days after Meloni made a flying visit to Donald Trump’s Florida golf club, during which she reportedly “pressed hard” on Sala’s case.
Before arriving home, Sala’s boyfriend, Daniele Raineri, told the news agency Ansa that she was “excited and very happy”. He took the first photograph of a smiling Sala as she met Meloni.
Sala’s father, Renato Sala, told Ansa: “I’ve only cried three times in my life. I believe our government has done an exceptional job. I will tell her I am proud of her and of her ability and composure.”
Opposition leaders also praised the government’s diplomatic efforts. “Today the whole country is celebrating without distinctions and controversies,” the former prime minister Matteo Renzi wrote on X.
Giuseppe Conte, another former prime minister, said: “This is great news after days of tension. A round of applause to our entire supply chain, from the government and diplomacy to the services that made this result possible.”
During a phone call to her parents last week, Sala described the harsh conditions of her detainment in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, including having to sleep on the floor of her cell without a mattress and being given food through a crack in the door.
The prison is known for the detention of opponents of the Iranian regime, journalists and foreign citizens.
Among its recent prisoners is Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian 2023 Nobel peace prize laureate, who said in an interview published by the French magazine Elle last week that Evin was a place “where political prisoners die”.
She said there were 70 prisoners in the women’s wing “from all walks of life, of all ages and of all political persuasions”, including journalists, writers, women’s rights activists and people persecuted for their religion.
One of the most commonly used “instruments of torture” was isolation, said Mohammadi, who shared a cell with 13 other prisoners before being released on temporary medical leave on 4 December.
Mohammadi has personally documented cases of torture and serious sexual violence against her fellow prisoners.
She had been due to go back to jail on 25 December when the three-week leave period expired but her Iranian legal team asked for an extension, a move backed by a medical committee but which has yet to be approved by prosecutors.
For now, Mohammadi remains at liberty but in a state of limbo in the absence of a response by Iranian authorities to the request, the France-based lawyer for her family, Chirinne Ardakani, told Agence France-Presse on Monday. “This is a cruel strategy deployed deliberately by the authorities,” she said.
